A Conversation with the World's #1 Real Estate Influencer, Julie Douarin

Today, we have the pleasure of speaking with Julie Douarin, a key figure in real estate on social media and the world's leading real estate influencer. With over one million followers, Julie has built an engaged community around a deeply human profession, bringing transparency, education, and modernity to the field. Coming from the field herself, she now supports professionals and industry leaders in their visibility and personal branding strategies in the digital era. We wanted to bring together our perspectives: that of a technology and digital player, and that of a field professional who places human connection and trust at the heart of her work. The goal: to understand how innovation and relationships can complement each other to drive lasting change in real estate.

More than a shift or a trend, technology is a MANDATORY and ESSENTIAL part of real estate. Whether loved or hated, it is unthinkable to separate the era from the industry.

Training is not a punishment — quite the opposite. We are not all born tech-savvy. Having good tools is one thing, but you still need to know how to use them to their full potential. The user manual is essential.

I'm going to make some friends again, but I stand by it. I find that the industry is either "too much" or "not enough." Let me illustrate by looking at the top performers nationwide across all real estate sectors. The recipe for reaching the expected revenue is always the same: training (they attend every training session), lots of fieldwork (the client and their needs are at the heart of every action), and they live in the present by having the best digital tools.

Human relationships are the foundation of the profession. When I say this, people tend to think only about the "client" side, but the human element is also in working together. Being recommended often goes hand in hand with exclusivity. The exclusivity ratio is an indicator that makes all the difference. Our top performers have an exclusivity ratio close to 100%, while the national average is 25%. Referrals make the difference and open new opportunities — a word to the wise!

The need for human beings is central in this industry. Even though digital is a facilitator, it will never replace that fundamental notion. The decision-maker is still a living being in charge of this need today — the intermediary, trainers, and digital creators are too. Let's never forget that the "Go" is driven by the living.

My first piece of advice would be to know exactly what you're getting into. When I started, people came to real estate for performance — today that's still true, but with new profiles who come more to help society evolve. The persona has changed. I'm always very surprised during conversations to see how little people know about the industry and all its possibilities. Knowing before you start allows you to find "your real estate." The time saved is significant, believe me.

Three main profiles make up real estate: the "pure real estate" people, the "sales at all costs" people, and the "digital forever" people. The "pure real estate" people are graduates or successful career changers: lots of knowledge, real professional skills, and revenue that goes through the roof. In short, the true operators. The "sales at all costs" people mainly come from business schools. They imagine new commercial concepts. They have several missions: performance, appealing to the "pure real estate" team, and the general public. The "digital forever" people, whose birth we carbon-date to 2017, have actually been around since the birth of the internet and its true professional use since 2006. The tech side, which may seem like a recent trend, is already an important pillar. Tech brings ease to daily life, which doesn't mean it replaces knowledge — it elevates it #nuance.

Take the same pleasure in it! You communicate every day of your life (unless you live in a cave) — communicating on "social media" is simply a continuation of what you already do in your life. No one is asking you to write a thesis. Do you love your job? Show it, say it, educate, share the good and the areas for improvement. Just be yourself.

A moment of sociology: the human species is a species that interacts. Digital interactions, although they can be of good quality, happen through writing, increasingly through voice messages, and through video calls. Our brain is not calibrated to receive so many emails, so much information. It receives them but doesn't process them with the same importance as in-person encounters. Neuroscience teaches us that the human brain works through the conscious and… the subconscious. We wrongly think that the conscious takes over. As philosophers Bergson and Jung wrote, the subconscious feeds on all our mammalian senses. In-person encounters, unlike digital ones, activate all our senses. Physical events will never be replaceable.

Unless you have in mind being the next Nobel Prize winner, let's stop over-intellectualizing a subject that is already unclear to most people. Be solid in your knowledge but keep it simple, please. Let me give you a very simple example: "the Experts." We ask our "Experts" for knowledge that few of us have, they use very technical vocabulary, and yet when you talk with them it's crystal clear. The overly complex concepts and words — let's keep those for the reports.